Rakuten Kitazawa

Rakuten Kitazawa (Japanese北 泽 楽 天; born July 20, 1876 in Ōmiya (now Ōmiya -ku, Saitama ), Saitama Prefecture, Japan, † August 25, 1955 ) was a Japanese manga artist and caricaturist.

Together with Okamoto Ippei (1886-1948) he made known to the American cartoon character style in Japan. He looked at the drawing of comics not only as an intermediate step on the way to true art and called himself together with Okamoto was the first artist ever " Mangashi " ( "Manga Teacher" ). His comic strips were politically and practiced humorous critique of society and government.

Biography

Fukuzawa Yukichi, who played an important role in the modernization of Japan, should Kitazawa, when he was about twenty years old, have given the Council to create images modeled on western cartoons. Kitazawa worked from 1895 for a week in Yokohama, published, English-language magazine Box of Curious and from 1899 as a picture editor for Fukuzawas Jijishimpō newspaper for which he worked until 1932. There he learned his craft, including the Australian painter Frank A. Nankivell.

In 1902, he created under the influence of North American comic strips, for example, Richard Felton Outcault, Rudolph Dirks and Frederick Opper, which reached its peak at this time, the comic strip series Tagosaku to Mokube no Tōkyō Kembutsu (Eng. about " Tagosaku and Mokube on tour in Tokyo ") for the Sunday supplement of Jijishimpō, Jiji Manga. Although Kitazawa still used therein no speech bubbles, Tagosaku to Mokube no Tōkyō Kembutsu is considered the first serial comic strip in Japan.

1905 founded Kitazawa own satirical magazine, Tōkyō Puck (東京 パック) whose circulation was around 100,000, and by which he was to receive a high level of awareness. In Tōkyō Puck Japanese cartoonists found a place to bring their works to the public. The yonkoma manga in English, Chinese and Japanese to current international events devoted to politics. Due to the success of Tōkyō Puck, which was also published in other Asian countries, Kitazawa founded more satirical magazines. Around 1912, he devoted himself instead of Tōkyō Puck the biweekly appear to end successor Rakuten Puck (楽天 パック). However, this could not build on the success of Tōkyō Puck and was soon adjusted to it.

In the late 1920s he traveled through Europe and the United States. In Paris, an exhibition of his work took place in 1929 even.

Kitazawa trained many young artist and created in 1934 by a school that specialized in Comic and Cartoon Art. 1948, when Osamu Tezuka with his story manga reported successes, the yonkoma manga displaced slowly, he went into retirement. Seven years later, he died at the age of 79 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

In his honor, a museum in his hometown Ōmiya was built in 1966, which was integrated in the prefectural capital Saitama 2001.

Works (selection)

  • Tagosaku to Mokube no Tōkyō Kembutsu (田吾作 と 杢 兵衛 の 東京 見物)
  • Haikara Kidorō no shippai (灰殻 木戸 郎 の 失敗)
  • Chame to Dekobo (茶目 と 凸坊)
  • Donsha
  • Kokoro no Runpen (心 の ルンペン)
  • Teino Nukesaku (丁野 抜 作)
  • Tonda Haneko (とんだ はね子)
Saitama, Saitama
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